lunge in that direction. It took the guard five seconds to knock me to the floor.
And then she was all over me, all two hundred pounds of her. She forced my head to the floor. It was sticky with what I later realized was my own blood. She jammed one knee against my back, and started hitting. Not with her fist, with the club that hung by her side, next to the cuffs and the keys. I was shaking so badly by then I don’t know how she managed to land a solid blow, but she must have been thoroughly trained, because my ribs were exploding one after another, a most thorough and systematic attack.
What was I feeling at that moment? Was I still howling legal curses? All I remember were the sounds, round, hollow, knocking sounds from inside, that might have been my ribs or might have been my head pounding against the floor. I felt no pain, not until later, when the bruises welled up and a thick, itchy scar began to form. Mostly I was worried about the butter. I wondered what she’d do if she found it. I wondered how much longer this would last, if she’d ever get tired. I was tired. The floor was smooth and cold, and I just wanted to lie down and sleep, sleep forever, or until it was over. Sleep and wake somewhere else, in a field of wildflowers, safe and warm.
She stopped at some point, or I fell asleep, or I fainted. It doesn’t matter. The butter was still there when I was tossed back into my cell, and I tried to spread it on my bleeding forehead. It had congealed and was turning rancid.
Some time later, they wheeled a cart with a phone on it into my cell. I connected with my lawyer at last. He told me to wait there—again, wait there—and he would be over within the hour. After posting a bond, I was finally released. It was fourteen hours since I had been pulled over.
My lawyer later told me that the Penal Code mandates that a prisoner be allowed to contact his attorney within three hours of his arrest and that any medication request has to be reviewed by the doctor on call. It didn’t matter. The thing inside that used to care—that got indignant, outraged, that insisted on its rights—had been beaten out of me. It just didn’t matter anymore.
Nothing has ever been the same for me since that endless moment on the cold stone floor. Nothing ever will be. I know now that I am touchable, that I am not immune. You grow up separated from the people on the bus, or the people on the street, by a glass wall of money, education, a profession. You never think it could be you when you watch that poor black guy being beaten up by the cops. It’s just TV. You can barely remember his name now—Arthur King? Robert King? Rodney. You are Rodney King, and it doesn’t even show in the mirror.
Maybe it’s worse when you’re a lawyer, and you know what rights are being violated. Maybe it’s not, because when you get out, there’s another lawyer waiting to defend you. I ultimately got off with a reduced sentence—a “wet reckless,” which cost me a bundle but didn’t really inconvenience my life. But I still hesitate to take my shirt off and reveal my scars to a new lover. I hesitate to bare myself at all.
5
I knew I was getting a little bit manic when my next-door neighbor’s drums started driving me mad. Even though I wasn’t practicing law full-time anymore, I still had to pay the rent. I’d taken on a petition for habeas corpus, and the deadline was looming. But for the past two hours, I’d been assaulted by an incessant thump-thump-da-thump, so loud it made my bedroom windows shiver. I’d been lenient so far about the late-night jam sessions, the early-morning piano scales, and the White Album playing over and over in an endless homage to the 1960s. I’d been lenient because I’d heard that my neighbor was a big-time songwriter and record producer, and I loved living next door to a big-time songwriter and record producer. Somehow it made my own rent seem a bit less obscene.
But when you’re heading up toward
And then she was all over me, all two hundred pounds of her. She forced my head to the floor. It was sticky with what I later realized was my own blood. She jammed one knee against my back, and started hitting. Not with her fist, with the club that hung by her side, next to the cuffs and the keys. I was shaking so badly by then I don’t know how she managed to land a solid blow, but she must have been thoroughly trained, because my ribs were exploding one after another, a most thorough and systematic attack.
What was I feeling at that moment? Was I still howling legal curses? All I remember were the sounds, round, hollow, knocking sounds from inside, that might have been my ribs or might have been my head pounding against the floor. I felt no pain, not until later, when the bruises welled up and a thick, itchy scar began to form. Mostly I was worried about the butter. I wondered what she’d do if she found it. I wondered how much longer this would last, if she’d ever get tired. I was tired. The floor was smooth and cold, and I just wanted to lie down and sleep, sleep forever, or until it was over. Sleep and wake somewhere else, in a field of wildflowers, safe and warm.
She stopped at some point, or I fell asleep, or I fainted. It doesn’t matter. The butter was still there when I was tossed back into my cell, and I tried to spread it on my bleeding forehead. It had congealed and was turning rancid.
Some time later, they wheeled a cart with a phone on it into my cell. I connected with my lawyer at last. He told me to wait there—again, wait there—and he would be over within the hour. After posting a bond, I was finally released. It was fourteen hours since I had been pulled over.
My lawyer later told me that the Penal Code mandates that a prisoner be allowed to contact his attorney within three hours of his arrest and that any medication request has to be reviewed by the doctor on call. It didn’t matter. The thing inside that used to care—that got indignant, outraged, that insisted on its rights—had been beaten out of me. It just didn’t matter anymore.
Nothing has ever been the same for me since that endless moment on the cold stone floor. Nothing ever will be. I know now that I am touchable, that I am not immune. You grow up separated from the people on the bus, or the people on the street, by a glass wall of money, education, a profession. You never think it could be you when you watch that poor black guy being beaten up by the cops. It’s just TV. You can barely remember his name now—Arthur King? Robert King? Rodney. You are Rodney King, and it doesn’t even show in the mirror.
Maybe it’s worse when you’re a lawyer, and you know what rights are being violated. Maybe it’s not, because when you get out, there’s another lawyer waiting to defend you. I ultimately got off with a reduced sentence—a “wet reckless,” which cost me a bundle but didn’t really inconvenience my life. But I still hesitate to take my shirt off and reveal my scars to a new lover. I hesitate to bare myself at all.
5
I knew I was getting a little bit manic when my next-door neighbor’s drums started driving me mad. Even though I wasn’t practicing law full-time anymore, I still had to pay the rent. I’d taken on a petition for habeas corpus, and the deadline was looming. But for the past two hours, I’d been assaulted by an incessant thump-thump-da-thump, so loud it made my bedroom windows shiver. I’d been lenient so far about the late-night jam sessions, the early-morning piano scales, and the White Album playing over and over in an endless homage to the 1960s. I’d been lenient because I’d heard that my neighbor was a big-time songwriter and record producer, and I loved living next door to a big-time songwriter and record producer. Somehow it made my own rent seem a bit less obscene.
But when you’re heading up toward
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